Categorical representation of abstract spatial magnitudes in the executive telencephalon of crows.
| Autor: | Wagener L; Animal Physiology Unit, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany., Nieder A; Animal Physiology Unit, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Electronic address: andreas.nieder@uni-tuebingen.de. |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | Current biology : CB [Curr Biol] 2023 Jun 05; Vol. 33 (11), pp. 2151-2162.e5. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 02. |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.013 |
| Abstrakt: | The ability to group abstract continuous magnitudes into meaningful categories is cognitively demanding but key to intelligent behavior. To explore its neuronal mechanisms, we trained carrion crows to categorize lines of variable lengths into arbitrary "short" and "long" categories. Single-neuron activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) of behaving crows reflected the learned length categories of visual stimuli. The length categories could be reliably decoded from neuronal population activity to predict the crows' conceptual decisions. NCL activity changed with learning when a crow was retrained with the same stimuli assigned to more categories with new boundaries ("short", "medium," and "long"). Categorical neuronal representations emerged dynamically so that sensory length information at the beginning of the trial was transformed into behaviorally relevant categorical representations shortly before the crows' decision making. Our data show malleable categorization capabilities for abstract spatial magnitudes mediated by the flexible networks of the crow NCL. Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests. (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.) |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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